To me, Vicky, you, as an individual company/corporation, can't fight so many thieves. You're talking about large (?) groups of people who work just as hard at stealing your property as you do trying to protect it.. You already know that it's nearly impossible to keep ahead of. You're always hearing stories about non-porn sites getting hacked. Schools, companies, whatever getting hacked all the time. And I don't see any way to stop it. Technology has brought this to us. It's brought so many wonderful things to so many people. You can take a pictorial trip to a foreign land. You can get life-saving medical advice, You can educate yourself. You can see pictures of your favorite beautiful woman any time you wish. And, sadly, you can see all of your good, hard work, get turned out to the world for free.
I don't think that individual users are getting hacked all that much. Yes, it does happen. While many do not have good security in place, there are many who have minimal protections. That's one reason that entities like Microsoft are now including security along with their systems. Think Windows Defender. True, those are 'stopgap' measures, generally better than nothing, but certainly not all-inclusive. I, for example, have pretty good security in place. But I don't feel that I am 100% protected. And, anyone who visits unknown, random sites to download content for their own personal use, as you state, Anthony, don't realize that those pictures you download can contain malicious coding that can 'work you over. So, to me, part of the fault is those of us who have done that random downloading before. My software investigates every download I make for malicious software and will alert me to anything it feels is 'not right.' Does that make it perfect? Probably not. But it is sure a pretty good effort to protect it's users. (
www.malwarebytes.com.) They have a whole team of folks who will work with you if you get hacked until they get it fixed. It's happened to me twice a few years ago, and they stuck with me. They'd provide a file to run. I'd run it and send them the results. They did that two or three times until, finally, the problem would be eradicated. And the first time that happened, I was using the free version. So I bought the paid version and have been happy ever since. So, I would say, to individual users, spend the money. Get a
good system in place. Abd, I'm of the mind that MWB is much better than either Norton or McAfee. Also MUCH cheaper My annual renewal is around $40, compared to $100 or more for McAfee or Norton. The main thing that impresses me is that, if you have problems, NWB will stick with you until your problem gets resolve, while the others provide minimal help. I had Norton for years. But 1) it got too expensive, and 2) they never provided even close to the level of help that MWB provides for less than half the price. Without looking again, I seem to remember that you can get complete protection for 5 or 6 devices for $139 initial investment.
OK, I looked. $80/year for Premium for 5 devices (includes your Android or IPhone) plus 6 other apps for free. Those aren't necessary for everyone, but, for example, one app is called "1Password." It would replace my "Last Pass." which is only$35/year. But I'll probably just keep this one. It also works just great. Once it is installed, it will collect my passwords into an encrypted place. I can choose to enter my info manually, or it will fill in the blanks and log me in automatically. It works great and I'm quite happy with it.
As long as there are corresponding mentalities that dictate that stealing others property is the way life works, is somehow their 'right,' this is a battle that won't go away. So, in today's world, people have to spend massive amounts of money just to protect themselves. And it never stops.